When the youngsters were brought before the court on Friday, March 7, the judge fined them for their so-called “calumnious language” but also advised the police that the sewers are a public space. Hence the youngsters have every right to be there. With no other options, the kids have simply returned to living in the sewers.

Dwayne’s House, a Jamaican organization established to feed and clothe the youngsters living in the sewers, paid the small fines for some of the arrested youth. See the Web page of Dwayne’s House for more information or to contribute (in the United States or in Canada).

No other options? Assuming they are all underage, the court system doesn't intervene and force the underage children to go into custody of some kind? They just let them live in the sewage systems?

As far as i know, this particular group, aren't children. There is a system in place for that. These are young men, late teens, in their 20s, etc.

20 somethings ain't no youngsters! Tell the newspaper this Amurr-can was confused about that term.

I thought they were all under 18 and the judge was like 'get back in the sewer'. Okay, well in that case these groups that are there to help pay their fines, house them, etc are doing what they can for adults. I do hope they can gain some stability asap and get out of the sewage system.

UK/US never get anything right when they report on other countries. I remember the last time the Brits did a documentary on our hospitals....lawdamercy...i wondered which part of North Korea they were talking about.

When the youngsters were brought before the court on Friday, March 7, the judge fined them for their so-called “calumnious language” but also advised the police that the sewers are a public space. Hence the youngsters have every right to be there. With no other options, the kids have simply returned to living in the sewers.

Dwayne’s House, a Jamaican organization established to feed and clothe the youngsters living in the sewers, paid the small fines for some of the arrested youth. See the Web page of Dwayne’s House for more information or to contribute (in the United States or in Canada).

No other options? Assuming they are all underage, the court system doesn't intervene and force the underage children to go into custody of some kind? They just let them live in the sewage systems?

As far as i know, this particular group, aren't children. There is a system in place for that. These are young men, late teens, in their 20s, etc.

20 somethings ain't no youngsters! Tell the newspaper this Amurr-can was confused about that term.

I thought they were all under 18 and the judge was like 'get back in the sewer'. Okay, well in that case these groups that are there to help pay their fines, house them, etc are doing what they can for adults. I do hope they can gain some stability asap and get out of the sewage system.

I dont think I would be an upstanding a citizen if I had no where to turn. I mean they can't even live in waste and be left alone. So yeah, throwing rocks at cars and being a nuisance might get me a free meal in jail.

I missed this comment. The aim is not to get a free meal in jail. What free meal though? and i see where you are coming from with the first sentence. New Kingston has a "straight" homeless population too but they DO NOT behave like the gays.

Side note I was in Clock Tower Plaza yesterdy and last week and smirked at the many assumed gay men in the food court/shopping in Bargain mall. Nobody batted an eye

So swearing is illegal but parents abandoning their children is not. Jamaica is ass backwards. I vowed to NEVER travel there. And if the LGBT community was smart they would boycott them too. If you don’t want gay people there then you don’t want our gay dollars!!

Child abandonment is illegal. And swearing is not illegal. Its annoying and offensive as hell, when Im standing in line at the supermarket, a group of men walk in, being as boisterous and extra as they can, curse words rolling off their tongues, just to disrupt and annoy others. Honestly, if i owned an establishment and anybody came in their behaving like that, disturbing and disrupting other customers just trying to do their shopping in peace, i would ask them to leave. And i dont give a sh*t who, what gender, or which group it is.

When the youngsters were brought before the court on Friday, March 7, the judge fined them for their so-called “calumnious language” but also advised the police that the sewers are a public space. Hence the youngsters have every right to be there. With no other options, the kids have simply returned to living in the sewers.

Dwayne’s House, a Jamaican organization established to feed and clothe the youngsters living in the sewers, paid the small fines for some of the arrested youth. See the Web page of Dwayne’s House for more information or to contribute (in the United States or in Canada).

No other options? Assuming they are all underage, the court system doesn't intervene and force the underage children to go into custody of some kind? They just let them live in the sewage systems?

As far as i know, this particular group, aren't children. There is a system in place for that. These are young men, late teens, in their 20s, etc.

I will say that because of intolerance many gay men are chased from homes or communities and that the plight of a homeless gay male in Jamaica is not an easy one to tackle for a myriad of reasons including the fact that private home owners do not want to rent to them, limited job opportunities, limited financial resources (but those also are the plight of many other Jamaicans from certain areas) . I will also say that homeless gay men have been lving in New Kingston for decades so why the furor over this group? See Below

NB Public discourse on gay rights/plight is rife with emotions, misconceptions and you are wrong/hand-over-ears syndrome unfortunately.

Why can't people live how they see fit if they're not harming anyone!

I love this zsa zsa really i do. They are harming a whole lot of people and ironically enough the big push to get them from the abandoned homes was when an American tourist was robbed!Previously Home owners and residents were at their wit's end. The police would come and then they would return. [Aside: These are upscale neighborhoods, hell right in the Prime Minister's backyard. How would you like it if a group of rabble rousers were comprising your peace safety and sanity in your home? Especially one where the rent/mortgage for the year is STEEEEEP?]

It makes no sense to force upon any society, a viewpoint/lifestyle they are not yet ready to embrace. Note the use of the word yet. I have seen a marked change in the attitude of the average Jamaican towards LGBT over the last decade. And i have also seen much resistance to this change. We are not there yet but we will be. We even had a case in the constitutional court and the decision is now heading to Judicial review Not that it has any grounds to stand on

J-Flag and JASL (Jamaica Aids Support for Life) have as WF said distanced themselves from this group. Why? cause their behaviour is lewd, crude, terrible AND criminal. They would go to the office of JFLAG/JAs and act a plum fool! As if they were owed something. They had to ban them from the property. Hell it is highly likely that one of the reason the JFLAG/JAS had to move from a lovely property on the outskirts of New Kingston to a much more smaller more scaled down operations at a much less widely known address is because of this wild bunch.

There is talk within the Jamaican LGBT comm. that JFLAG abandoned them but what are you to do? And Jamaican public says JFLAG most come for it's people. JFLAG is a cash strapped body being asked to stretch its meagre budget to help everyone. When they closed Project Safe House in 2009 for whatever reason that was a serious blow to the homeless community.

New Kingston has NO court apart from Knutsford Court Hotel

Homosexuality has NEVER been illegal in Jamaica! The act of buggery is. [Blame England's slave laws again] The Prime Minister has promised to review the Legislation and see if the law should be revealed. The thing is if the Majority of Jamaicans do not agree with such should it be repealed?

You have to understand the use of the language, and look at the purposeful use of language in the article.Youth does not equate to children or kids. They are young men some are teenagers yes but mostly young men. Youth = young person

Also the word sewers. a gully is NOT a sewer in the sense that most use it. But yes it is still filty

[Here is a marked difference btwn Standard Jamaican English is and other English's (sic), random thoughts people take note]

That group of homeless gays have terrorized the New Kingston (Jamaica's commercial District) and its surrounding residential neighbourhood. Tensions were HIGH last year when it all came to a boil and they moved from nuisance to phuckery. I'm talking burning and stoning commercial buildings, graffiti, intimidating pedestrians, robberies, breaking windows, robbery. AND prostitution. They kept moving from abandoned house to abandoned house and then the crimes began. So the private owners of these homes were contacted and they initiated the demolition (one was slated for demolition anyway to build apartments)

Living among those were murderers (oh yes), thieves, and male prostitutes and they would prey (chop up beat up) on the others who spoke up against them.

The court did not allow them to continue living there. The judge told the police that the sewers were public spaces

Comments

ic TheDragonSlayer on March 12, 2014 at 10:21 am

So swearing is illegal but parents abandoning their children is not. Jamaica is ass backwards. I vowed to NEVER travel there. And if the LGBT community was smart they would boycott them too. If you don’t want gay people there then you don’t want our gay dollars!!

LORTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Jamaican has a $hitload of antiquated laws, so called "slave law" [Thank you England] true but by virtue of a Special Savings Law Clause in our Constitution they can not be removed from the books with just the stroke of the legislature's pen. While I can be foul mouthed, That law should stay and the enforcement of it should be paramount. Too many curse words, roll off the tongue far too easily and pepper public spaces for all to hear. and Jamaica does not have a shortage of curse words! *climbs off soap box*

Child abandonment is illegal in Jamaica. However these are not children!

There is a campaign to boycott Jamaica within the global LGBT community. All this talk about the gay dollars that we dont see is moot to me. Both National Newspapers have had articles bemoaning the "loss" of these gay dollars. So the cry has not fallen on deaf ears. Which is a step in the right direction.

Another comment pointed to religious hypocrisy. I've seen the satirist cartoonist in the dailies point this out as well as Letters to the editor. Centred Mainly around asking why the church does not leave the judging to God and appealing on a a human rights (Jesus is love) basis. Here is the article that prompted the cartoon. This pastor has been on missions to feed the homeless gay men

I think the outrage should be focused on kids living in sewers to begin with. Focusing on police actions to get those kids out isn't the true problem here IMO. Sewers are nasty, dirty places that breed disease...

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot create polls in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forum